


Dream Sequencer

by elanor_pam



Series: The Golden Age [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alien Technology, Gen, Implied Mind Rape, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Loss of Limbs, Technobabble
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 21:40:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4641150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elanor_pam/pseuds/elanor_pam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The dream faded like a movie does, slow, into black. Continuity implied, heavy with symbolism. He lay suspended in the soothing darkness for a few moments, until his consciousness, too, faded.</p><p>He had the feeling he was unconscious for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Preludium

At first there was grass.

Karkat stood barefoot, and the lawn under his feet was thick and overgrown, poking at his ankles and tickling the thin skin between his toes. 

He stood in silence for a while, took a few experimental steps. It felt nice, fresh and crunchy and green. There was a breeze. He hadn't much to do. One of his feet had been hurt, he remembered, and perhaps it was the slightly more sensitive one. 

He sat down to check on them but was distracted by the all-encompassing atmosphere of quiet peace. A quick glance revealed no differences between feet anyway. He leaned back in a haze, feeling the grass poke and scratch his palms, until he faded back into total unconsciousness. 

He had the feeling he was unconscious for a while.


	2. Dream Sequencer

He was dreaming. 

He knew it for a dream right away, perhaps because Crabdad figured so prominently in it. But what was happening in it was... real, in a way. He knew it because of Crabdad, again. 

He was dying, see. 

There was no wound, no mark, no thickslowtricklingblood, no _reason_ (there was a reason, but in the fuzzy reality of the dream there were layers and layers of soft padding to protect him from it); the great white body lay on the featureless floor, immaculate under soothing honey light, his thoracic chamber expanding and relaxing slowly, and Karkat sat by his side in silent vigil, trying not to cry. 

The lack of literally anything else in his current dreamscape did not bother Karkat in the least; it was only him, his lusus, and their extended goodbye, and he would not have had it any other way.

He touched his lusus' head, slow and reverent, felt every little bump and scratch and imperfection in his carapace— once easily ignored, now jumping out in sharp detail. He traced the curve of a spur, followed an antenna, investigated the edges of an articulated joint. 

Crabdad churred sleepily. They had time. 

Karkat caressed a claw, marveled at its smoothness. Pitter-pattered it with diluted pink tears (he was crying after all). He breathed slowly as his fingers ran over the serrated grip, memorizing every rough valley the whorls of his fingertips caught themselves on.

He moved on to Crabdad's back, vaguely and suddenly as an idle thought, like you do in dreams. His thoracic chamber still inflated and deflated shallowly under Karkat's splayed hands, and that was how Karkat knew he could. Love him. A little longer.

There was warmth beneath the vast carapace, and though Karkat had always known it, his palms felt it anew. He touched him, caressed him, let him know he was there; for a long, long time, for uncountable minutes, for a small concentrated infinity, Karkat was able to concentrate all his attention and affection on his fading lusus.

It hurt, when he finally went. A quiet, deep pain like unstirred water. Karkat couldn't bear to break the silence, so he swallowed his sobs, splayed his palms on the unmoving torso and shook. Reality was nothing but him and his lusus, so he mourned without thought or fear for the future. 

The dream faded like a movie does, slow, into black. Continuity implied, heavy with symbolism. He lay suspended in the soothing darkness for a few moments, until his consciousness, too, faded.

* * *

There were more dreams, after the goodbye one. But they were contextless snippets, missing in raw emotion, a little disappointing in entertainment value. Like bizarre snapshots of programming glimpsed while shuffling through propaganda feed sources.

In one, Karkat found himself poking around on some alien kid's cranial dome. 

Ominous description aside, it was quite tame. The kid was one of the dappled aliens, with two thin tendrils sweeping back from the top of its head, and Karkat was examining its rough texture with distant, clinical curiosity. The kid sat on the imaginary manifestation of a chair, and he stood at its back with a good view of the freckled head. He traced a shallow bump, cartilaginous but warm. He had the impression the texture was deeper on adults, but wasn't sure exactly why he thought that. 

"Your head is weird," he told the alien kid. It laughed, a little nervous. 

He touched one of the tendrils, lifted it up, let it fall back down. The gesture should have been a little on the intimate side, but Karkat felt quite businesslike. It was a Thing he Didn't Know What It Was For, and he didn't care much either, but hey. 

The kid seemed to see it differently; its breath hitched.

"It's there," it said, breathlessly. Karkat couldn't see its face at his angle, but could almost guess a smile from its bunched-up cheek. 

"What is?" he asked, vaguely. He fiddled with the other tendril, let it drop. Felt a little bored. 

"I thought it was gone," the kid mumbled. "I could swear it was gone..."

"This thing?" Karkat batted at one of the tendrils, half-heartedly. "Yeah, it's right here."

The tendril twitched feebly. "Yeah..." the kid said, full of wonder. "It's there. It's right _there_."

And then the dream faded, a blank station in the shuffle. 

In other dreams he found himself molding smooth squishable mud, tracing the dust on a fancy chair, writing fancy curly letters with a feather stylus, typing away at a blank keyboard just to hear the sounds and feel the click of the keys. Sometimes there were other kids, alien kids, and sometimes they were interacting in some harmless way; often he found his arms being doodled on, markers tickling his skin, and he somehow didn't mind. (He could never quite parse the doodles, and in the next scene they were always gone.)

The kids were generally friendly, sometimes as confused as he was, sometimes just weirdly stoked about being poked in the fingernail. It didn't bug him much, but after a certain point it started bugging him a _little_.

There was always some sensory input, and it was always incredibly banal, and it might not be a big deal but still prickled at his hornbed like an unanswered question.

Eventually he was once again standing, and another alien kid sat in front of him; this one was hornless as well, with brownish yellow hair in fussy curls, and wore some fluffy, lacy horrorterror of a dress. 

He was braiding her hair. Karkat had never once braided _shit_ , but hey, there he was, doing just that. You'd think this was a pale porno, except he could not be feeling more detached from the action. 

Maybe in this dream he was playing hairdresservant? Fucking dreams, what the hell.

"My dad _loves_ me," said the new alien, with smug certainty. 

"Really?" Karkat mumbled, uncaring. Even in dreams, braids were complicated shit, and this one required his attention for whatever reason. 

" _Yes_ ," she said, emphatically. He assumed she was a she; this particular brand of alien felt more familiar to him somehow, more easily classifiable. "Everything he does is to make me happy."

He made a vague prompting sound. Her hair was silky and gleamed very interestingly between his fingers, and the feel of it was more fascinating to him than her bragging about an overly doting lusus.

"You know, I really _can't_ complain about my life." She threw her head back in some sort of curl-toss, but since Karkat was in the middle of adding more hair to the braid, it only made him accidentally pull too hard; but if she felt any pain from it, she didn't react. 

"Sit still!" he snapped, and to his surprise she did, stiffening completely from the neck down. There hadn't even been any sign of startlement; she might as well have been a robot settling back on her charging pose. "Uh... thanks."

"Don't mention it," she said, her flaphole apparently not part of the stillness package. "You're doing my hair, and I wouldn't want to be ungrateful, now would I?"

"I guess not, what with you telling me as much right now," he answered, braid now somewhat forgotten. He eyed the girl's exposed neck and cheek. She was porcelain-smooth, but it suddenly hit him anew, as if somehow relevant to his train of thought, that this was a dream.

"Yes, certainly. My dad _always_ told me to be properly grateful for all the great things I have, because everything he does to me is for love."

" _To you?_ "

"For me," she corrected smoothly, failing to acknowledge Karkat's spluttering surprise. "He gives me everything I want and asks for so little back, you know? I live in a big safe house, and I have my own big safe room, and all the toys I ask for, and games and movies, and my dad will _always_ protect me."

"Oh great," Karkat mumbled to himself. "This is one of them _creepy_ dreams."

The girl didn't say anything, but to his surprise she turned to glare suspiciously at him over her shoulder. She was— she was so _trollish_ that the differing palette was really almost disturbing; beige lips, pink-brown skin, white sclera, eyes an adult-brown so dark they approached full-on black. 

"You're one of the _outsiders_ , aren't you?" she asked, suddenly not friendly at all.

"I don't know, maybe?" Karkat shrugged. He still held braid locks between his fingers. "I'm from Alternia."

"You're a _house ruining demon_ ," she said, accusingly. "You have horns, just like my dad said—"

"Haha, oh my _god_ ," he scoffed. "You know among my kind _hornless people_ are the ones we call demons! And yet I'm not here pointing at you parroting baseless accusations of demonness because unlike you I'm _not_ a gibbering fucking idiot who, what, never left her 'big safe house'?" He rolled his eyes. "Demons don't even exist, that shit is propaganda. Your dad is a moron."

She tried to jump away from the chair and almost yanked Karkat's fingers along for the ride. 

"Ow, _fuck!_ " he screamed, tugging back like an idiot before common sense kicked in. "Fucking hell, sorry I called you a demon, damn—" she was still tugging, trying to stand up and walk off, and Karkat found himself trying to keep up with her just to spare his hands. "I said _sorry!_ Troll demons are also green skulls so you don't actually have anything to do with them, okay? Let me get my hands back—"

" _You're the Kid Snatcher! You came to turn me against daddy!_ " She wheedled, her light-brown face morphing into a red, crumpled grimace at record time. " _Don't steal me away!! I don't wanna go!!_ "

"I wouldn't steal you if you were gold-foiled, now _give me back my fingers!_ " Karkat screeched back over her bawling, but despite his words he was already halfway through untangling his hands. "There! There you go. You're home-free!" He stepped back and flapped his hands at her general direction. "Go, run home to your lusus or whatever! Geeze," he kept flapping his hands, but now mostly to get the sting out, "didn't even finish the braid."

But instead of running away into the blankness the girl just stood there, staring at him in clueless surprise, and at his harried mumble she started feeling up her hair until she could tug a curl down to eye level.

"No!" she cried out, a small horrified squeak under her breath.

"Sweet bleeding barfpockets, what _now_ ," Karkat raised his eyes to the softly glowing sky. "You know, in the time you stood there I could have smacked your head and stolen you away for real, or just smacked you and left you there—"

"But it's straight-hair day," she moaned. "Dad will be _so_ disappointed."

Then she turned to him and... she seemed to have reset, somehow. Her face was still mottled and red, but her expression was now 'prettily upset' instead of 'raw horror'. 

Karkat took a step back without meaning to.

"You know," he said, softening his voice almost to a whisper, "I was braiding your hair just now."

"I see," she nodded to herself, apparently deep in thought. "But... I should have straightened my hair first."

Apparently, "person braiding my hair" and "kid-snatching demon" were not the same. From her casual attitude, there was a possibility that "person in front of me" was also a new entrant.

"So... is that important?" Karkat shifted backwards a little. Maybe he should approach this as a conversation with Suddenly A Hungover Highblood In My Lawnring.

"Yes!" she nodded eagerly. "He gets sad if I'm not Pretty when he arrives home. He works very hard everyday, see," she fiddled absently with her curl, eyes going vague, "to make sure I don't have to go outside. He always gives me everything I need, because he _loves_ me."

"Is that so? _Dang!_ " maybe if he kept scooting back inch by inch, his hive's door would materialize at his back and he'd be able to run inside.

"And I wouldn't want to be ungrateful," she continued, pretty much entirely to herself. "Not when he tries so hard to make sure I'm happy, right?"

"Hnnnnmmmm!" Karkat nodded solemnly.

Two things happened. One, she once again glared suspiciously at him, apparently grokking that his agreement was less than enthusiastic. Two, the dream started to fade, like a hazy curtain sheepishly lowering on an unexpected farce.

He looked the girl square in the face and shouted " _YOURDADISANASSHOLE_ " right before it went away completely.

When he faded back in, he looked down at the plump black alien kid varnishing his claws, widened his eyes and said "I just met the _biggest weirdo_."

"Oh _man,_ me too!" The kid returned the wide-eyed look in kind. "It was like talking to a health-nut shitposter bot. Who the hell puts their kid in a vegan diet _and_ bodybuilding regimen? One is bad enough!" He applied another nice cold layer of varnish on Karkat's pinky. "Can you even imagine how a pre-teen vegan bodybuilder ended up in neuromuscular remapping? Scary shit, man."

* * *

The dream changed— in scope as well as in scenario. 

The grass was back, but there was a sky — golden, pink, ragged with ratty clouds — and nearby there was a lake extending into the horizon. It was a close horizon, but, well. You didn't inspect a gift horizon in the distance, and it had been a while. 

Behind him and far to the sides the lawn extended in soft rolling hills, pale and misty, punctuated by small alien hives of all colors and shapes along the shore. Other figures stood in the mist, looking around themselves, walking among the hives. Everything was pale and fuzzy and maybe leaning a bit too bright, but not in a sinister way. 

The whole thing kind of had a friendly, Troll Tim Burton vibe.

"Neuromuscular remapping," Karkat mumbled to himself, testing the words in his lips. Making sure they hadn't faded. 

"Hm?" another voice said from a little too close by. 

Someone was sitting by the lake shore, relaxed as you please, looking back at him in mild surprise. Another of the palette-swapped hornless trolls, it seemed, even through the backlit mist; black hair, brown skin, the gleaming outline of eyeglasses. 

Something about him said "nerd", so Karkat felt pretty assured of an incoming answer when he plopped down on the grass nearby. 

"Neuromuscular remapping," he repeated. "The fuck is it?"

The alien snickered. "I dunno, but it sounds pretty sciencey!"

" _Sciencey?_ " Karkat threw his hands up. "Well shit, _that_ clears up everything! I can't believe I wasn't capable of gathering this much from the staggering breadth of evidence available. I'm a fucking moron!"

"Geeze, lay off!" the kid scooted away a bit, almost more symbolically than effectively, and shot Karkat a dirty look. "I'm as new to this Star Trek shit as you can get."

"This is ridiculous. Don't you live here?"

"As of right now, I guess?" the kid shrugged vaguely. "But I didn't before."

"What, were you kidnapped by pirates too?"

The kid gaped at him with renewed interest. "Pirates? Like _space pirates?!_ "

Karkat rolled his eyes. "Nah, they invaded the homeworld on a rowboat _what do you think?_ "

"Haha, sorry!" the kid scratched his head sheepishly. "It's just that space pirates sound really awesome."

"They're not," Karkat waved a hand, trying to go for dismissive. "They suck really hard."

The kid was silent for a couple of seconds. "Sorry," he said again eventually, and sounded a lot more genuine about it. "My planet didn't have space travel, so anything with space in it sounds cooler than it probably is."

"Really?" Karkat found himself laughing a little forcefully, eyes running past the lake's soft lapping waves without really seeing. "Aha, fuck, you guys must be pretty backwards, huh?"

"We weren't that bad!" the kid pouted. "We just got started with the technology, and we went to the Moon, and there are space stations around the planet and stuff, and it's just that our scientists are still studying how to fly faster than light, is all!"

"Geeze, you don't even have that much?" Karkat smirked. "Your planet is fucking hopeless. How are you not conquered yet?"

"Well, apparently the _Space Federation_ likes my planet _just that much!_ " he replied acidly, and Karkat got the belated feeling he'd touched a sore neuromuscle. "So much so they send their _space royalty babies_ to grow up there incognito for some reason? Maybe it's got something to do with the _Space Magical Death Stars_ that were like scattered over the five continents and   _transdimensionally overlapping the Moon!_ " 

The kid threw his hands up, his herbivore teeth gnashing visibly; for half a second it looked like he was going to literally inflate with rage. 

"But hey," he turned to Karkat with the angriest, fakest smile ever, "assuming they somehow manage to _put the Earth back where it originally was_ , I might be able to visit my quaint childhood home again someday."

Karkat leaned back, gave him a considering look. "Sounds like you have a pretty complicated story to tell," he said, mildly. 

"Yeah," the kid mumbled, made a short, vague gesture with his hand. "Sorry about that. I mean. It sucked and it was scary, but it was short and it wasn't pirates, and I'm being a big whineypants."

"But it sounds like something pretty dire happened to your planet."

"It does," the kid shrugged, "but I was told it wasn't irreversible? Like, apparently, there's a chance the general population won't even perceive anything, or think it's a weird climatic thing. I wouldn't know, it all happened too fast." He scratched the back of his neck in a small nervous gesture. "I didn't even know it was a planet-wide cataclysm. We were just playing ghostbuster-goonies..."

He shrugged again, sheepishly, and seemed to shrink into his shoulders. 

Karkat put a hand on his shoulder, feeling a little fake. Pirates or not this kid had gone through something massively screwed, yes, but right now what Karkat _really_ wanted was to ask him questions, to be preferably answered in a calm and reasonable fashion with a minimum of ranting, so he kind of needed this alien to be calm.

"So..." he said, tentatively, "do you know where this is?"

"Oh?" the kid perked up. "No, shit happened and then I was in this shared dream."

"But you keep saying you were told things. Who's doing the telling?"

"Oh!" the kid perked up even further, looked around himself energetically. "So, did you just arrive here in this field? Like just now?"

"Yeah, but are you seriously gonna change topics on me now?" Karkat took his hand away, feeling betrayed. "What the fuck, why?"

"No, no!" the kid shooshed him with a wiggle of fingers. "See, you haven't gone into the little house yet! Does any one of these seem yours?"

He whipped his pointer finger toward their surroundings, seeming almost too excited to sit still. Clearly morose pouting wasn't his natural state; he seemed glad to talk about something other than himself.

Karkat examined the area with a little more interest. The scenery was adorable, but not any less unreal; the hives were like three-dimensional illustrations, realistic but not real, and he felt no kinship to any of them.

He turned back to the kid and stuck his lower lip out. Welp.

"It'll show up," the kid dismissed the other hives with a flapping hand. "See, when you go into the little house there's a little guide that tells you what's going on. It's like this little hub? I mean," he glanced around as if paying attention to the scenery for the first time, " _this_ is a hub, pretty much, but in there it feels a lot more tightly controlled, I dunno."

"Hn," Karkat glared at the misty, fuzzy green space between two nearby hives. He really wasn't sure if he liked what he heard, but he was leaning towards "not". A small hive that worked like an information hub?

"This is all way too weird for me," he decided eventually.

"Really? I think it's super cool," the kid said, still perfectly cheerful. "It definitely feels like we're in the Future."

"How are they doing this?" He bit his thumbclaw — or rather, he touched his thumbclaw to his lower lip, which felt more natural than putting it between his teeth despite thousands of movie depictions claiming otherwise. "How are we, two different people, sharing a dream, talking in a dream, _knowing_ it's a dream— how are they in our heads?"

"Science?" the kid still wasn't taking his misgivings the slightest bit seriously.

"Will you at least pretend to consider the possibility they're blithely _violating our minds?!_ "

"Nah," the kid said, a little too dismissively. "They're not."

Karkat threw his hands up, sucked in a breath, prepared his vocal chords to belch _how would you know_ to his face; sometime during those arrangements, though, a horrible, horrible possibility occurred to him, and he deflated. Gave up.

The kid gave him a small sideways smile, shrugged one shoulder. Like Karkat's thoughts were written in his face.

"We... met a Thing," he said, slowly. Answering the unvoiced question. "And... I don't think it meant us any ill. I think..." he shrugged again, averted his eyes, "I think it was just trying to get to know us better? I mean..." he laughed a bit, "it looked almost _goofy_ , you know? For a giant monster from another dimension. It tried to pat me. In my brain. Like— like it was blind. In the brain."

He patted down the top of his own head, absently, as if reliving the sensorial memory of it, and— and the sight of it punched Karkat somewhere in his soul that he only just noticed was _very_ tightly padded.

"And," the kid continued, slow and hesitant. "It was horrible? It was. Painful? But also... it was so _goofy?_ And I... I pushed back," he pushed his hands out vaguely, "and it went, because. It hadn't actually. Meant to. But I don't think it would have known to go if I hadn't..."

The kid compulsively brushed his alien hair back.

"It was so awful, and funny, and I felt so sorry for it because it was like a giant old dumb baby—"

Karkat tried to give him a firm, strong, reassuring hug. He tried, but then he burst into great gulping sobs and couldn't stop; so instead he shuffled up damply and gave his new friend a floppy, shaky, wet hug instead.

This guy. This _guy_.

" _It's okay!_ " the kid said, fuck, now he was the one giving Karkat a firm strong hug instead, how the tables had turned. "Oh, geeze! I was totally fine afterwards. I was _untouchable_ and _invincible_ and Rose spoke its tongue and I don't know what was up with Jade and Dave but then Jade showed up looking scary tall right before I fainted and I was told Dave was fine and all and—!" He rubbed Karkat's back vigorously. "Geeze, oh man. You were kidnapped by space pirates! That was probably unspeakably awful, and I only know pirates from movies—"

"Noooooohoooohoooo," Karkat slapped his back in feeble spasms. "Ee was just... (unintelligible squeaking) _buncha dumba piraaaheeeeheeeteees..._ "

"You're a _liar-pants_ and you know it," he said, voice suddenly rough, and then he started sobbing on Karkat's shoulder too. "Oooh, no, fuck, we both suck, look at this. Look at this!" He started laughing in the middle of crying, and Karkat ended up catching his snickering despite himself; theirs became the dampest, giggliest hug. "Shit! Hehe. Is that your house?"

He pushed away gently, pointed up—

"Oh," Karkat gasped, wiped his eyes on his shirt to look better.

It stood right there on the grassy slope, freshly made and yet as if it had always been. It wasn't Karkat's hive, but it was built in familiar lines, _for_ Karkat. 

A small, friendly Troll Tim Burton hive he would recognize on sight.

"It'll be okay!" the kid said, damply and earnestly, grasping Karkat's arm.

"I believe you," Karkat said, just as damply, nodding and grasping his arm back. "If you say it, then I believe it."

The kid nodded as well, frantic, and then blurted out: "I'm John!"

"Jown!"

"John!"

"John!" Karkat nodded back, almost breathless. "I'm Karkat!"

"Kar-Kat!" 

"Yes!" Karkat smiled and most definitely did not wibble, and again wiped the totally not tears before shuffling to his feet in a way that was most certainly not pathetic. "I'm going in!"

"Yeah!" 

"I'll ask about the thing!"

"Yeah, you do that!"

"Yeah! Bye!"

"Bye!"

He climbed the slope, stopping every few steps to turn and wave like he was three sweeps old again, and managed to hold onto that optimism right up to the whimsically lopsided door (exactly his size). 

When he turned the oversized crab handle, though, he couldn't help it. He felt incredibly fucking somber.

* * *

The inside was very quiet. He hadn't noticed many sounds outside, but the difference was palpable; out there, there were small background sounds, a sense of moving air and wide spaces, but inside was just quiet.

 _Tightly controlled_ , huh. It certainly felt like sounds couldn't get out either.

Much like its outward appearance, the inside was a mishmash of familiar and strange. It really wasn't big— just a single block, smaller than his old respiteblock— but it had a small counter with a handful of basic kitchen utensils, a water dispenser and washing crevice, a small hunger trunk, a couple of shelves, a nutrition platform, a simple desk and seat, and a squatty sliding-box storage dispenser with a mirror stand on top. There was one window, twelve-paned as usual, but the glass was bubble-thick and frosted; outside he could perceive little more than mist.

There was no recuperacoon, but then again, he was already asleep.

He didn't exactly have a mirror in his hive outside of the ablution block (which this hive lacked as well), and its inclusion, as well as location, struck him as particularly odd. It was a fairly big mirror for a fairly diminutive house, tall enough to display him from horns to waist, but it was angled away from the entrance— such that he'd have to step further in to see himself in it.

Also, there was a sheet of paper lying on the desk nearby, printed in big red letters:

THE MIRROR WILL TALK TO YOU.

"...thanks for the heads-up," he told the room, flatly, eyeing the small tea-set currently reflected. There was no reaction or response.

He took a slow step inwards, then another, all the time watching as the reflection rolled past appliances and window panes, until— his face, furrowed in suspicion from brow to chin.

He jumped back and so did his reflection, looking comically dismayed; he straightened his back, fixed his shirt, schooled his face, and was closely followed by the asshole on the other side of the glass without the slightest deviation.

Raise finger, wiggle finger, poke nose. Pull lips back, make face, wiggle mouth, mimic outrageous chewing.

This was a totally normal mirror.

"Argh," he deflated, rolled his eyes. So much for—

"Hey."

Whether he did jump, how high, and how stupid he looked as he did were things he couldn't tell, because his reflection was standing still and looking at him with an expression he would have never even _pictured_ in his own face.

(It was calm and serious and made him look weirdly young.)

"You, you _asshole!_ " he spat at the reflection, who looked at him with these big, pitifully contrite, downright gelatinous eyes which he himself was probably not even physically capable of emulating, and it just pissed him off further. "Asshole. Asshole! You asshole. Asshole, asshole— you—" he somehow managed to get unstuck. "You did that _on purpose!_ "

"Shifting into active mode while under the subject's focus can engender feelings of unsettlement and alarm," said the mirror, still making with the infantile meowbeast eyes. "Which is why introductory activation takes place when you avert your eyes." It ducked its head subtly, not in contrition but somewhat like a curious quackbeast. "Startlement isn't the goal, but as it usually segues into annoyance or humor, it's considered more appropriate than the alternative."

"Oh, really? _Really?_ " Karkat sneered at the mirror, arms open in mockery. "And what's the alternative to getting on my bad side? Because that's what you just did, _bub_."

He narrowed his eyes and pointed threateningly at Mirrorkat, feeling very cinematic. 

"As the programming takes over your projection, your impression would likely be that something is taking your body over from within," said Mirrorkat, impassively regarding his dominance display. "To children recovering from high-stress situations, which this programming is meant to address, dissociation and revulsion are the most likely results, and rapport is much harder to build in such circumstances."

Karkat tried really hard not to imagine his usual expression morphing into this dude's.

"Well, have you considered _not_ using a damn mirror?" he asked instead. Yeah, let him ruminate on that one, as well as his own incompetence.

"I did give strong consideration to interacting through a particular poster of Troll Will Smith, which your memories seemed to hold strong positive associations for," the reflection admitted. "But it was also heavily associated with the state of _being home_. It seemed thoughtless and inappropriate to use such a personal symbol as mouthpiece."

"Well," Karkat stuttered a bit, feeling suddenly awkward at how relieved he was not to be having this conversation with Troll Will Smith, "I, uh, I actually genuinely appreciate that—"

"I'm glad."

"—but I'm really not sure what to think of your admission that you dug around in my memories."

"That would be incredibly invasive," said the reflection, sounding mildly offended. "I used sensorial memory to encourage you to build this space yourself, which is comprised of objects you associate with the scent of [fresh sopor] and [dry laundry], the taste of [grubcorn] and [grubnoodles], and the warmth of [medium-standard grocery-drone tea]. Only once it was built did I shift that information to my outside server and run standard presentation filters."

"What's the point of all that?" Karkat blurted out, glancing at the tea-set with renewed trepidation. "Make it look cutesy?" 

"Make it look _different_ , yet _non-threatening_ ," the mirror answered. "You are in a completely different ambient than the one you were in before, and the things and people that hurt you before cannot harm you, reach you, or perceive you here. If you so wish this program will allow you to confront the memory of them, in your own time and in controlled circumstances. But this place is your [Refuge]. You can come in from anywhere, and nothing enters without your knowledge or permission. On the other hand," the reflection ducked its head slightly, "this is not your hive, and it's not my intention to pretend otherwise."

Karkat ran that last spiel over in his head a few times. So... built to look similar, but not _too_ similar to his hive, strictly in order to put him at ease? It kind of worked, but somehow that only made it more suspicious.

"Well, you're here," he pointed out.

"Yes," the mirror agreed.

"I didn't know about you beforehand, and I certainly don't remember giving you permission to be here."

"I am only active as long as you're reflected in this mirror," it said. "More specifically, your face and-or one of your hands. You can turn me around, or lie me face-down if you want. Though if possible I would like to convey some basic information on this program before you did."

"So why didn't you do that to begin with?" 

"Answering your questions are a priority of this program," the mirror shrugged one shoulder.

"Fair enough." Karkat settled back on one leg, arms crossed for maximum skepticism. "Lay it on me."

"I am an Artificial Intelligence, designated [PRSMR] — Program for Recovery and Support of Minors at Risk — or 'Sam' for short, and I exist specifically to communicate with children who have been put under stress by their adult caretakers."

"Nice try, but there are no adults in Alternia."

"You misunderstand me," 'Sam' cocked its head to the side. "This will require context."

"What, you meant the rescue ship people?" It was Karkat's turn to cock his head, which he would have hated himself for, had he noticed. "It was scary at first, but looking back it wasn't actually that bad." He nodded to himself. "And their captain was a _total badass_."

"Commander Keelus' conduct is being evaluated," said the mirror. "Although I personally found it exemplary. In my experience, Alternian children regard the diminishing of critical situations as suspicious rather than reassuring, and are more receptive to a frank exposition of impending risks. I took the liberty of sending the Committee for the Protection of Youth a treatise on the topic. They will probably agree, once the hysteria has died down. But I digress," the reflection looked embarrassed for half a second. "We are talking about what qualifies as your adult caretaker."

"I told you, there is no such thing!" Karkat sighed. "Look, I get that apparently in your culture kids are a big deal, and adults trip over themselves to serve us because we're so rare or something, but in Alternia we're basically a caegar a dozen and literally nobody gives a shit."

"We'll get back to that," said the mirror, impassively. "By the standards of our culture and for legal purposes, in the absence of a willing adult caretaker, that responsibility is considered as belonging to whoever was responsible for the child's existence in the first place."

Karkat snorted. "Good luck finding that asshole."

"That asshole is your Condescension."

Karkat sputtered.

"She is the one who enforces reproduction under threat of death," it continued, heedless of Karkat's ongoing sputtering. "Which is in itself criminal, and compounded by the fact that the ones involved are under the age of informed consent. Therefore it is her responsibility to provide all children, equally, with a safe environment in which they can thrive physically and emotionally, which she has utterly and purposefully failed to do."

"Whu-wha-what? _What?_ " Karkat grasped his head. "No! _God!_ The Condesce is _not_ responsible for my entire life, holy shit! That's fucked up!"

"Yes," said the mirror, laconically.

"Okay, I, I think I've got your chain of logic, but— look, I'll be honest!" Karkat whipped a hand down in a half-hearted gesture, like he was going to chop a melon and gave up halfway. "I don't like you telling me my life was shit. I know I pretty much made a sport out of self-hating bitch-fests, and I loved to moan about my meteoric future career as a smear on a fork, but shit was pretty rad at times, and compared to many of my friends I actually had a good lot! I was safe! I was happy! I had a bunch of awesome hate-friends! I had a load of games, and I netted a weekly grocery-drone delivery somehow so I barely ever had to screw around outside—"

"There's literally not a single facet of life on Alternia that is not heinously and unnecessarily harmful in some way," said the mirror, flatly. "For that matter, 'my life isn't always horrible' is basically confirmation that there is an ongoing crisis."

" _I'm gonna turn you face-down,_ " Karkat threatened, but took a step back instead of forward.

"There were discussions at first about whether this responsibility should be shared by the entire middle-high class which oversees and manages the Homeworld Support System," it continued. "But the Committee has determined that in the absence of the Condescension, these classes would have literally no reason to uphold the system. In fact, the rate of suicide among Wiggler-Wranglers is legendary, and being transferred to Homeworld Affairs is considered punishment akin to a demotion to the salt mines."

"Holy fucking _shit!_ " Karkat grasped his head again. "Who are Wiggler-Wranglers and why do they kill themselves!?"

"They are Jade-Blooded Resource Allocatorturers for newly-pupated children, and the job appears to take a heavy emotional toll on them," it said, simply. "They are also reportedly more likely to embrace eschatological cults."

"What, worshipping poop?" he started to regret using 'holy shit' so often.

"Hoping the world will end already," the mirror clarified.

Karkat didn't know what to say to that.

"Returning to my introduction," it went on, "I communicate with children in cases where extensive physical, emotional or mental damage are involved, and where wariness of adults is to be expected."

"I'm not mentally damaged," Karkat said in a hurry, but couldn't help a note of doubt.

"No," it confirmed. "Your cognitive abilities seem to have developed very close to the ideal rate for your developmental stage, and better than the alternian average for your age range. The emotional damage is within expected parameters for alternian rescuees and treatable with minimal chemical intervention."

"So... my foot?" Karkat glanced down at the offending appendage, or at both of them, because he suddenly couldn't remember which of them was broken. "The starvation?"

"You were caught in the concussive blast of an orbital missile," it dropped unceremoniously. "You are currently in a medically-induced coma while the damage is healed."

Karkat walked the three steps toward his desk chair, turned around, and threw himself ass-first on the floor.

"Ow," he said, almost as an afterthought.

Orbital missile? An attack? He remembered being in the ship, yes, but suddenly, with a jolt, he remembered _leaving_ the ship, the headlong run through crystal roads in the alien doily planet on the curved viewport, the shivering gazebos. The memories were disjointed and muted, padded, and he felt an unexplainable aversion to probing further.

So he didn't escape the bombardment, huh. And now was apparently unconscious somewhere at the mercy of alien science and its medicullers, with a mind-bot to keep him company while he was busy being asleep. 

He pushed back to his feet and stumbled up to the mirror.

"How bad is it?" he asked, hurriedly, dreading the answer.

The mirror didn't seem to have changed positions between his leaving and returning, and its solemn expression belayed a very unpleasant answer.

"You were launched at very high speeds," it started, already too horrifying for Karkat's tastes. "And the superheated gust left third degree burns throughout your back, from head to legs. The impact of your landing—"

Karkat walked back to the desk chair, took a few deep breaths, and pushed it along into the mirror's view.

"Would you like me to stop?" asked the mirror, earnestly, watching Karkat's hyperventilating with almost endearing worry.

Karkat somehow managed to fumble his ass on the seat while simultaneously shaking his head, or doing a drunken approximation of. "Lay it on me," he gasped out.

"You can stop this exposition at any time if you feel you are not ready to handle its contents," the mirror said, its face slightly dubious; when it continued, it seemed to be against its better judgement. "The impact of your landing severed a foot and an arm," (Karkat grasped an arm in shock) "and crushed another arm beyond the point of recovery." (He grasped his previously grasping arm) "Some skin surface loss was also reported. The damage is not irreversible," it added hurriedly, "but full recovery will take... some time."

Something about the hesitant, guilty way the mirror said that set Karkat's bullshitometer on fire. 

"How long have I been— _am I a cripple now?_ " He blurted out, before he could think better of it. 

"No," the mirror answered straight away, almost defensively. "New limbs have been printed and attached, and new skin grafted. But," and the mirror most definitely was guilty about it, "our doctors could not risk rejection, and your unique genetic composition—"

"You mean my mutation," Karkat interrupted without thinking, hands sunk halfway into his hair as he boggled at the thought that they _might not be there anymore_. 

"—your mutation—" the mirror conceded— "meant our doctors couldn't rely on standard compatibility protocols and available cellular material. Samples had to be extracted from your marrow, their health confirmed, your genome mapped, and enough culture grown to reproduce what was lost."

" _What the hell are you even trying to tell me!?_ " he smacked the chair's armrests in frustration, pump-cookie (or a dream approximation of) pounding in his ears. "Just answer the damn question— how long did all of that even take!?"

It was undeniable by then that Mirror-kat did not want to deliver these news. It ducked its head, mournful and solemn, and faced Karkat with wide apologetic eyes; still it obeyed its programming.

"...three days," it admitted, in a remorseful whisper.

" _Three—_ wait, what?" Karkat squinted.

"The bioprinting process took three days," it repeated, eyes straying to whatever void it was stepping on. "From sample collection to—"

Karkat burst into hysterical laughter.

"Fuck!" he gasped, almost too relieved for words. "I thought— I thought— you had me going— _three fucking days!_ "

"Yes," it nodded, seriously. "Adding the stabilization period required before procedures could be started, as well as the post-surgery observation and neural input assessment period, I'm afraid you have been kept unconscious for six days."

Karkat threw his head back. " _Wooooooooooow_ ," he drawled, in between giggles.

"Neural calibration protocols have been run since then," the mirror continued, "but this delay is expected to lengthen your readaptation period significantly—"

"Wait!" Karkat jumped back up from his half-swooned sprawl. "Is that the thing?"

"What thing?" it asked.

"The, the," he started snapping his fingers, eyes roaming searchingly through the room, "Shit. Neuro! Thing! Mapping. Neuromuscle-mapping!" He pointed to the mirror. "I think! Is that it?"

"Did you mean: Neuromuscular Remapping?" the mirror asked.

"Yes, that!" he said. "Is this it?"

"Neuromuscular Remapping is a physical therapy tool for the restoration, calibration and measuring of sensorial and motor capabilities post neural damage, or neural replacement, through simulated interaction with virtual environments," the mirror intoned, without a single pause for breath. "We are not currently engaged in it, although prior to our encounter you were engaged in pre-calibration and initial calibration. However, our current environment does make use of neuro-calibration programming, and sensory input data from all your virtual interactions will contribute to your neural recovery database."

"Hold that thought," Karkat said, and sprinted out of his chair and past the door. " _John!_ "

He stopped a step away from the door in sudden confusion. Nothing had changed outside, except that he barely knew the place and didn't know where anything was in the first place. It had belatedly occurred to him that John had probably gotten bored and left like any sane person would, when a small figure by the shore perked up in attention and peered back at him.

Holy shit, he was still in the same place. What a guy to just sit there and zone out.

" _I figured out what it is!_ " he shouted nevertheless, and then added just in case: " _Neuromuscular remapping!_ "

" _What?_ " the figure shouted back, a little muffled by the mist. " _What is it?_ "

" _I lost my arms!_ " he waved them over his head for emphasis. " _And they gave me new ones! And it's calibrating them!_ "

" _Oh!_ " Pause. " _Makes sense!_ "

" _Yeah!_ " He agreed, and stood in place for a couple of awkward seconds before turning around and walking back inside.

"Sorry about that," he said, striding in and sinking back into the chair with a sigh. The mirror nodded stoically in response. "Where were we?"

"We were updating you on your health status," said the mirror, helpfully. "I can answer any further questions you may have on the topic."

"Awesome," he said, and immediately felt much too tired to think of a single question. "So..." he trailed awkwardly, "I'm going to have robot arms from now on?"

"No," said the mirror, looking confused.

" _What!_ " Karkat jumped on his seat, clutched his arms to himself. "But you said—"

"Upon review, my previous reference to your arms was ambiguous and overly technical," it said, apologetically, "and your emotional state at the time was likely to hinder your ability to parse information. Your new arms are cloned. They are made of flesh and bone and will look and work and grow exactly like your previous ones."

"Uh," Karkat glanced down at his arms with wild suspicion. "You mean like... a symbiont?" 

Symbionts were a deeply explored field of Alternian medicine which had somehow failed to yield a single non-horrifying success case, or any success at all outside of the ship-helming field.

"No," it said, to Karkat's relief. "A stem cell sample was extracted from your bone marrow, and the culture grown from it was encouraged to form into fully working limbs. They were then grafted into place. They are literally made of you."

Karkat kept hugging his own arms, unsure which way to take his feelings.

"So they are, like, exactly the same as the ones I pupated with?"

The mirror looked slightly dubious again. "The method I described cannot faithfully reproduce your finger whorls," it admitted. "Although your new ones have already been registered under your ID, and you should not experience any inconvenience on that regard. The programming also lengthened your carpal ligament by one millimeter on each wrist, which is standard procedure when there is risk of neural pressure in the future."

There was an awkwardly long pause as Karkat kept drawing blank after blank from his mental pile of cue cards.

"But yes," said the mirror, finally, "Once the adaptation period is over, these arms should feel and work exactly like the ones you were pupated with."

"That's nice," Karkat mumbled, and then continued. "My brain is full of fuck."

"It seems you would benefit from a pause in the proceedings," the mirror said. "This is admittedly a lot of new information to absorb at once."

"I don't even know where to start with all of this," Karkat mumbled to himself, only half-listening. "I lost my arms—"

"—and a foot," the mirror reminded him.

"—and a foot," Karkat added, "but they've already been replaced by indistinguishable ones, and all my weird dreams about being doodled on and poking people and braiding hair and getting my claws done was actually calibrating them with, like, random sensorial special effects."

"Pre-calibration and initial calibration gauge the medium threshold of neural excitement and muscle control in your average daily usage," it intoned. "Further calibration would involve wider sensorial extremes and, as such, would require your full consent and cooperation."

"I just feel like I didn't get to process this loss at all," he tugged despondently at a finger.

The mirror stopped talking, and that, paradoxically, called Karkat's attention more than its previous prattling had. He glanced up; the reflection seemed deep in thought.

"What?" he asked, puzzled.

"...this has never happened before," the mirror admitted, slowly.

"What, someone complaining about getting new limbs before they even knew they'd lost any?" Karkat let escape an awkward half-giggle, half-cough. "I mean, put that way it's without a doubt a fucking stupid thing to complain about, so hey, maybe I'm just the first smelly little bozo dumb enough to do it to your face."

"No," the mirror said, tentatively. "No, you are not dumb, and you have not complained all that much. Your commentary has been pertinent and illuminating. But... I am pondering the peculiarities of your case. Medically, psychologically, culturally speaking— you are a first in many levels, and we have been stumbling blindly. I believe you are correct, and we overstepped an important boundary."

"I'm completely fucking lost," Karkat admitted, with some amusement. "But seriously, I didn't mean to be an ungrateful bastard. I like having arms— in fact I fucking love arms, they are my favorite thing, unsung heroes of my life, the tireless support behind my many stupid midday internet rants. When I wake up I'll hang medals from each new wrist in posthumous commemoration of a short lifetime of loyal and unceasing work."

To his surprise, the mirror burst into laugher. It was definitely unlike his own laugh, rare as it was — the reflection covered its mouth with an awkwardly polite knuckle, its shoulders shaking up and down — and suddenly Karkat felt like he was talking... not with a very smart program, but with an actual being with actual subjective experiences. 

The laughter subsided; the mirror lowered its hand, looking away with something almost like bashfulness.

"I'm glad," it said, with surprising softness. "It does appear our oversight will not cause any lingering damage." It sobered up. "But it's a cultural divide we must keep in mind for future cases. You see, limb replacement is a standard medical procedure for us. No one who lost a limb in an accident would be surprised to wake up with a new one in place, any more than they would be surprised to receive a working appliance after sending it to repair. In fact," it looked up, earnest and intense, "children younger than five sweeps are not usually informed of the nature of their wounds — not unless they remember on their own — simply because the results of physical harm are considered less important than the psychological strain of receiving them. Bodies are so much more easily repaired than minds."

Karkat kept expecting the reflection to pace around in its display— or hey, maybe this sudden deluge of words was actually it doing its own equivalent of pacing around.

"But for children of Alternia, things are not like that," it continued. "They are made accountable for their own body and health from very early on, and we know this. But all our previous Alternian cases of limb replacement involved kidnapped children whose loss had taken place in the homeworld. In their cases, the possibility of a biological replacement was offered and accepted in transit, during quarantine. That an otherwise healthy child would be subjected to trauma and amputation while under our care was unthought of, and we were overzealous as a result."

"I guess "culture shock" is the word of the night here," Karkat found himself saying, even making soothing hand gestures. But the mirror was silent, looking down; after a few awkward seconds, it looked back up and nodded.

"I took the liberty of sending a report to the Committee for the Protection of Youth suggesting a new protocol for treatment of traumatic amputation post-securing," it said. "The benefits of letting an Alternian child know of limb loss and replacement before the procedure takes place should be seriously studied, even in comatose cases. It is bound to recur in our new juncture, regardless of future arrangements."

"What, you just wrote and sent a report like, just now?" 

"A preliminary one," it admitted. "It was not very long."

"Well, then," Karkat noticed he was flapping his hands nervously and deliberately rested them on his knees, "moving on from the topic of random limb loss, which is depressing and unpleasant. How is everybody else?"

The mirror went very still— for a very short amount of time, only barely long enough to be weirdly puzzling.

"In general, they are well," it said, neutral and flat. "They are wary and suspicious of their current environment and the medical staff, which is not abnormal of Alternian rescuees. For reasons of security, they are being kept separate from other patients at this hospital, which they are aware of and heightens the tension. It is not an ideal arrangement, but it is not expected to damage relations or complicate adaptation in the long run. Many have asked after your condition, and one could reasonably assume they are eager to see you again."

"That... is nice to know," Karkat said, slowly, "but what _is_ that about security?"

"Certain elements from various media outlets are known to be and are currently being rather indelicate in their pursuit of information," it clarified. "There is always the possibility that one such element would not be above manufacturing something scandalous to report about."

"Oh, that doesn't sound all that different from Alternia," Karkat wondered.

"Every civilization has its unpleasant and disruptive minority," said the mirror. "That the Condesce is one such minority doesn't make trollkind itself more or less advanced in that regard; it just means that her destructive actions influence otherwise neutral members and cannot be properly curbed."

"Isn't _that_ a nice thing to say," he said, snappish and unsure whether the mirror was being condescending or whether it actually had a serious point. 

"By comparison the troll Comuna has done a much better job of being a governing body," it continued, and then, without waiting for input: "The Comuna is trollkind's self-governing body in the Coalition, comprised of elected representatives from the three main territories and—"

"Oops! I don't care!" Karkat interrupted. "Tell me about my friends, whom I actually care about. How is Mui?"

The mirror went very still again, and this time its strange behavior was simply too obvious to bypass comment. 

"There is a memory you should unpack before I am able to—" it started, but Karkat didn't wait for it to finish.

"He's _dead_ ," he said, cold spreading down his veins. "He's dead, right? He died."

The mirror was silent and still, a different kind of stillness from before. Karkat was not the least bit surprised when it nodded.

"Yes," it admitted. "He is dead."

" _How_ ," Karkat tried to ask; his voice came out like a strangled squeak.

"He was crushed by a support beam during the Condesce's air-raid—"

"No!" he jumped up from the chair, stalked about the small make-believe room; he was too agitated, too angry, too _much_ to stay still. "How is he dead? How is he _still_ dead? I thought you were super-duper advanced, I thought you could heal anything. You gave me new arms!"

"And a foot," the mirror added.

" _Fuck my fucking foot!_ " Karkat snapped, turned back to the nonplussed mirror. "I thought he'd be healed in a sweep, you _told_ me he'd be healed in a sweep! What was up with that!?"

Its eyes trailed down to the bottom of its frame.

"Yes," it said, "we can heal and regenerate any part of the body from scratch— but not the brain." It shook its head. "Past a threshold of damage, there is nothing we can do for the original person. They are lost, and regenerating their grey mass would merely result in— a blank-slate brain, a different person, not yet possessing of any personality or memories. With luck, the victim would retain the memory of autonomous actions— basic limb movements, control over biological waste evacuation. But most attempts resulted in little more than meat puppets, newly-hatched grubs in adult bodies. Their own disincarnated spirits, when contact was possible, found them repulsive. For many thousands of years, regenerating clinically dead brains from scratch has been considered a violation of personhood, and forbidden by law."

Karkat wished he could grab the mirror by the lapels— not because he didn't believe it, because he did; hadn't Captain Badass said something like that? But he wanted to grab something, shake something, because Mui was now beyond help and reach even from these godlike enemies, and that. That was. 

It was so unfair.

He grabbed the mirror by its frame instead, and rather than shake it he bowed his head and sobbed long and hard like a pathetic wiggler.

"Was," he sniffled, eventually, "was everything... lost...?"

"Yes," the mirror said, softly, not unkindly. "I'm sorry. He was completely crushed. I'm sorry."

"Why," he mumbled, shaking his head over and over. He didn't even know whether he was trying to shake his tears off or whether he was just saying no to himself. "How..."

"I do not know the details," it said. "But they are somewhere in your memory. You were there, and you saw it happen. If you want to, I can help you look for it, and I will be there with you when you find it."

Karkat shook his head again, let go of the mirror, wiped his tears and snot with his sleeves. His entire face felt numb and prickling. He didn't look at his reflection, didn't want to; instead, he turned around and left the tiny house in mullish silence.

Everything was still as fuzzy and misty as before, the sky still bright and softly golden, the hives still lopsided and delicately, whimsically deformed. The green lawn crunched under his feet, the lake glowed into the horizon. He hated to think that the scenery matched his mood, but it was fitting in a stupid, friendly rainbow-drinker way. It made him want to cry all over again. 

Ultimately, the hows and whys of Mui's death did not matter. He was gone, and no one would ever even get to know his name. 

"Hey buddy! Back out here already?"

In the middle of his brooding stroll, the last think he'd expected to find was a strolling as well, infuriatingly chipper John.

"Hey," he said. His voice sounded like his throat had been attacked with a lawnwhacker.

John, bless his buckteeth, took one good look at his face and immediately sobered up. "I guess things aren't all okay, then?"

"My friend died," he rasped out. He couldn't even bring himself to cry again.

"Oh," was all John said, and, even through the numb padding prickling under his skin, Karkat was able to feel grateful for it— for the way his face fell and he seemed truly and genuinely sorry.

"He is dead," he repeated, mostly for his own benefit, so he could somehow embrace the notion. "He's dead and gone, and he died in pain, and he lived in pain for as long as I knew him, and everyone else is afraid out there and I'm here. I'm here among Troll Burton houses and puffy clouds while he's gone and dead."

Something began to stir inside the stunned silence in his chest, and the prickling under his skin started to resolve into burning. 

He was angry.

It wasn't a tantrum-throwing, forum-ranting, hair-grabbing anger; rather, it was a deep and punishing rage, slow-cooking and painful in his marrow. 

"Why am I here," he thought, and was vaguely stunned to hear it out-loud in his own voice. "Why am I here and alive, when he's out there, and dead. I can't be here. I can't just stay here when he's dead. I want out. I need to go." He looked up at John's terrified face. "Tell me how to leave."

"I don't know!" he drew back, defensively. "I think you just ask! At least, that's what I've been told. That— that when I feel I'm ready to leave, I can just ask."

"Good. I'm leaving." And, without much feeling: "Thanks."

He turned back the way he came, the smell of crushed grass rising offensively fresh under his sniffnodes. He hadn't walked far, and soon came back across his lopsided fake-hive, now a mockery of everything he had once held dear. 

He pushed his way in with wide and purposeful steps.

"I'm leaving," he said, before the door was even done closing. "I'm ready to blow this joint right fucking now."

"You're not," said the mirror, challengingly. It glared at him with something that almost looked like stubbornness.

"I'm telling you I want the fuck _out_ ," Karkat matched the glare with one of his own. "Am I a prisoner here?"

"No," it said, still frowning in displeasure. "But you are not ready. Even leaving aside the matter of your imbalanced state of mind—"

"My mind is _perfectly clear_ and I am _perfectly ready_ , now let me out!"

"—your physical body is still debilitated and your limbs are _only barely past initial calibration_." It sounded almost genuinely angry. "They will have less than seventy-percent their original range of control. Waking motion therapy could take you up to _months_ to complete."

Karkat threw his arms up. " _What a fucking tragedy!_ Now let me out!"

"My control over this space allows me to manage the chemicals affecting your mood—"

"So you _are_ controlling my brain!"

"—and permits you to be _functional_. Once awake, you will require weeks to recover hormonal balance. Your mood will be terrible. It will be incredibly unpleasant."

"I can do unpleasant! I grew up in fucking Alternia, which is _sooooo bad_ , as you've already told me!"

"By foregoing memory therapy here, you will have to face them while awake, whenever and wherever they resurface," it continued, fiercely. "And traumatic memories resurface at inconvenient times. In here, you can unpack them at your own contrivance, and step back when overwhelmed."

"I— don't— _care!_ " he spat back. "None of that sounds like a good enough reason for me not to wake up and smell this new fresh steaming loaf of excrement god has seen fit to set at my cupe-side. Mui is _dead!_ How do you expect me to sit here, be here, when _he_ cannot be here, or sit here—"

" _Being there will not help him,_ " it said, suddenly louder than Karkat had ever heard it speak; it went back to normal during his stunned pause. "But being here will help _you_."

"No," Karkat said, and raised both arms at eye level, palms back, in a defiant display. "This is something I need to process."

"Yes," it agreed. "You can and should acknowledge his life and death, but you do not have to do it the hard way. This is a dream. In here, you can more easily access your subconscious. You can resolve your pain, and wake up refreshed without the weight of this battle. Time is subjective in your memories, and you will be able to take as long as you need. The unpleasant details will fade like all dreams do, but the results will remain. Out there, it will be grueling work, long and unavoidable."

"I don't want to fade," Karkat said, tired and miserable but somehow truly understanding his own point at last. "I don't want to avoid anything. I want to feel the weight. I don't care if it's a bad decision. Let me fuck up my own way."

The mirror went silent, and was silent for so long that Karkat initially assumed it was writing a thesis on some bad Alternian culture shock thing that it thought was happening now. But then, unexpectedly, its face brightened, and it smiled. 

"I see," it said, to Karkat's disbelief. "I understand now. I still think it is unwise, but I acknowledge your reasons, and I agree that this is your decision to make. Even if it's harder and takes longer, a full recovery is as likely out there as it is in here. Choosing your own terms is your first step to healing and it is undeniably yours to take." The smile became a little sad. "It is unfortunate that you are not likely to remember this conversation in detail. It is a dream, after all. But I will hold it dear. I have learned from you, and I am thankful." Then it nodded to itself, businesslike. "I have informed the medical staff in charge of your physical health that you wish to leave the simulation. If you sit down and relax, you will soon be phased out into normal sleep. But before you leave, I would like to make two very personal requests."

Karkat nodded, still dumbfounded by this sudden reversal.

"Firstly," it looked very serious, "and most importantly. There is no pride in suffering for the sake of saving face. If you ever hit a wall you cannot see how to climb, remember that _that_ is the reason why I exist. Just like how you are leaving now, you are able to come back and leave again as you see fit. Your caretakers may suggest it, or you may request it of them, but please do not refuse help if your weight happens to catch on some bramble you cannot see."

"I... will keep it in mind," Karkat stammered. "If I remember."

It nodded, and then smiled again, wide and playful.

"Secondly, I'd like you to call me 'Sam'."

Karkat blurted out a surprised laugh.

"Sam!" he said, mostly as a startled echo. "Okay then, um. Sam. Hi, Sam. Hello there."

He waved at the mirror awkwardly, and it waved back, looking inordinately happy.

"Okay, so I just sit down and wait? Sam." It nodded cheerfully. "Okay. Um. Well. Here I am, butt down. I should probably relax, right? God, this is so strange, I didn't expect this. I didn't expect to get my way at all. I keep feeling like it'll somehow go horribly wrong— I mean, you did tell me how it would go wrong, right? I'm probably going to regret this eventually. But— it'll be my regret to feel! And that means something, right?"

The reflection of Sam smiled down at him with his own face, head cocked to the side, bittersweet pride in its eyes, and looking up at him Karkat felt the sudden, overwhelming sadness of losing a friend he barely knew all over again. 

"Bye, Sam," he choked out, as the mirror fogged with tears and the kid-sized appliances faded to black at the corner of his eyes. "You were pretty cool. I'm so scared. I still don't know what's out there, but I'll face it down like an angry mule like I do everything I meet. Thank you."

He had the impression Sam said something comforting, or touched him somehow comfortingly, or merely made him feel comforted in some way; but by then he had faded out too far to parse the gesture, and deep into a cold uncaring blackness he would not escape for far too long.


	3. Postludium

Karkat woke up, cold and heavy and numb, from a sleep he did not care for and into a world he did not care for.

Vaguely, he remembered having dreamed some stuff that was, at the time, interesting in some way. He could not muster the energy to wonder or care what it had been about. Right now, everything looked and felt like ash in his mouth.

An alien ceiling he did not care for. An alien window he did not care for. Slanted alien light he did not care for. 

Some alien person entered his field of view, smiling in an annoying way he did not care for. Short. Plump. White. Glossy. Bald. Those were characteristics he detected, and immediately dismissed as not worth the effort of thinking about.

The alien thing tugged at his clothes, fiddled with some cloth weighing him down, fucked about at some sort of padding behind his head. All pointless things he did not mind one way or the other. 

He wanted to go back to sleep, and just not dream, or think, or exist at all.


End file.
